By Guy Page
The Vermont House yesterday gave initial approval to H.27, which adds “coercive controlling behavior” as a basis for obtaining a civil abuse prevention order against a family or household member.
The bill passed 106-31 on a roll call vote (requested by Democratic house leadership). It is scheduled for final approval today, and then will proceed to the Senate.
At present, abuse prevention orders are granted against suspected perpetrators of stalking, sexual assault, child abuse, and placing family members in fear of imminent harm. The bill expands this criteria to include coercive controlling behavior between family or household members, meaning a pattern of conduct that has the purpose or effect of substantially restricting the safety or autonomy through implicit or explicit threats, intimidation, or by compelling compliance.
Examples include:
- monitoring or surveilling the plaintiff’s personal activities;
- manipulating mental health
- isolating from family or friends or opportunity to participate in a faith community or employment;
- repeatedly humiliating the plaintiff or using degrading language
- threatening to harm or abduct the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s children or animals that are connected to the family
- threatening to contact local or federal authorities based on the actual or perceived immigration status, and more.
The bill says coercive controlling behavior does not include conduct taken by a plaintiff to protect themselves or the plaintiff’s children from the risk of present or future harm.
Rep. William Notte (D-Rutland) said the bill is aimed at protecting women in abusive relationships: “While we employ gender neutral language when drafting bills, the honest reality here is that we are trying to assist women facing abuse from men who want to keep them under their thumb. I voted yes on H.27 because it offers needed protections for such women. Such women have died in instances where the first physically violent act of their partner was the one that killed them. Physical violence cannot be the bar, too many lives depend on this.”
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Categories: Legislation
Sounds like a lot of lefty women I see these days.
They should also protect people from nondomestic coercion, such as we saw from government, businesses, and even community groups during the covid hysteria.
So let me get this straight, we already have on the books abuse prevention orders are granted against suspected perpetrators of stalking, sexual assault, child abuse, and placing family members in fear of imminent harm, and now by adding a word
” coercive ” like this is going to make a difference, where do we get these legislators
and it looks like the majority voted “yes”…………………more liberal nonsense !!
If you abuse a woman ” she/her” for the ” woke ” crowd, you need to be punished, if proven true, the problem is that progressives don’t understand, that these animals
don’t care what bill you write, they won’t follow any judgment, a slap on the wrist from the liberal courts, get ready for another escalated event, if the perpetrator is not confined in jail……………… good luck.
Of course, this entire issue raises serious questions regarding semantics and definitions. I asked this question in a previous VDC article about H.89 (Act 14), an act relating to civil and criminal procedures concerning legally protected health care activity. H.89 is a bill ostensibly intended to protect and facilitate ‘gender-affirming’ healthcare policies.
https://vermontdailychronicle.com/beck-what-a-mess/comment-page-1/#comment-56216
I’ve read most of H.89 and cannot find a legal definition in it describing the difference between gender-affirming healthcare and, for example, child abuse as defined by the Department for Children and Families (DCF).
For example, according to the definitions in DCF Family Policy 50:
Abused or Neglected Child: A child whose physical health, psychological growth and development or welfare is harmed or is at substantial risk of harm by the acts or omissions of his or her parent or other person responsible for the child’s welfare. Also, a child who is sexually abused or at substantial risk of sexual abuse by any person and a child who has died as a result of abuse or neglect (33 VSA § 4912(1)).
Will someone be kind enough to cite for us the distinction between ‘protected healthcare’ in the H.89 statute, what constitutes ‘child abuse’ in the Department for Children and Families (DCF) policy, and now ‘coercive controlling behavior and abuse prevention orders’ in H.27?
I mean really. 106 legislators voted for H.27. Someone should be able to explain the logic.
Or is this just another permutation of the legislature’s continuing Abbott and Costello ‘Who’s on First’ routine?
Re: “I mean really. 106 legislators voted for H.27. Someone should be able to explain the logic.”
Okay, it’s been a couple of days now. Do you hear the sounds of silence?
The disregard for Vermont constituents exemplified by our legislators in this regard cannot be exaggerated. I can’t recall but one or two comments in total over the last several months from any legislator pushing their ‘tyrannies …. sincerely exercised for the good of [their] victims’. Other than pontificating on Front Porch Forum perhaps, where are they? What more proof does anyone need to judge their arrogance?
Just another angle to take weapons .The pendulum of disparity has rocked so far against men .What ever happened to equality because I witness in communities the behavior from an alphabet of genders but only men being on the court dockets.Hmm .Lets see the statistics on that.
This is all so nebulous that anyone may be accused and indicted.
Exactly how does this fit into a domestic policy?
“threatening to contact local or federal authorities based on the actual or perceived immigration status, and more.”
These bills are so often plagued with such vague gneralities and hyperboly that the true nature of what they are about is known until they are enforced.
This is the government, further inserting itself into the private lives of citizens, interpreting and deciding what the citizens are intending, thinking and feeling.
It should be noted that this kind of abuse is far more prevalent in lesbian relationships. Never hear that from the queer crowd, eh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships
these clowns are not going to stop unless you stop them//// they all should be in jail for treason//// treason///// treason/// got it ///
I have a slightly different perspective. I care for my aged mother in my home, who is rapidly succumbing to dementia but not so far gone that she wouldn’t pass a competency test. And indeed, I have cared for dozens or more of patients with dementia over the years.
Let’s see…
*monitoring or surveilling the plaintiff’s personal activities; (yup, I do that every day)
*manipulating mental health (a case could be made)
*isolating from family or friends or opportunity to participate in a faith community or employment; (I offer the opportunity, we drive her to the Senior Center twice weekly, and pick her up. She would like to go more but it’s difficult to justify more because its expensive to drive to town when no income is generated from this endeavor)
*repeatedly humiliating the plaintiff or using degrading language (pointing out that she has forgotten the four times I reminded her of her hair cut appointment makes her feel bad but if I don’t then I’m guilty of the next item-abduction)
*threatening to harm or abduct the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s children or animals that are connected to the family (harm is subjective in many cases. Just ask a vegan)
*threatening to contact local or federal authorities based on the actual or perceived immigration status, and more. (doesn’t apply)
While I agree these are heinous behaviors to inflict on others, how does this prevent some overzealous individual from making my life a living hell when they make their anonymous complaint?
How do you enforce this? It just seems like more virtue signaling without careful and studious examination. Just my humble opine.
And meanwhile, Pam, our public education system has distorted its mission from teaching the three RRRs (a relatively simple undertaking), to changing the meaning of our language, eliminating our meritocracy, replacing the family, demagoguing religious spirituality, promoting racial intolerance, grooming children’s gender dysphoria, and bankrupting us in the process with its racketeering.
Is this not child abuse… dare I say it, child ‘trafficking’?
“How do you enforce this?” My wife just asked me why I continue to pay the property tax that supports this tyranny. The best answer I could give her was that I’m doing everything I can to limit that financial support, and to explain an alternative education governance (yes, School Choice) that will restore our traditional values. But I still felt hollow and empty inside.
Mr. Eshelman, I do concur, it is a form of child abuse, in my eyes.
If I could find a way not to pay property tax or income tax or sales tax, I would. Normally, I pay my way, my fair share but when that money is squandered, and I am not represented appropriately or at all in local government, then I want my money back.
I am wondering if Ms. Christine Stone has been in touch with you? She and I were discussing something we think you would be interested in.
If she hasn’t and you are interested, please reach out to Mr. Page and have him forward your message to me. Or contact Ms. Stone thru her website.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Thank you, Pam, for the reference to Ms. Stone’s speakVT.org web site. It’s encouraging to know the concerns with the current public education monopoly are fast rising to the surface of the Vermont psyche.
As I was perusing the speakVT site, I came across an excellent observation by Dr. Peter Hughes, psychologist, and philosopher. “Acts of kindness bear witness to our shared suffering. But when kindness becomes pathological, it is cruel and divisive”. Dr. Hughes, too, is identifying the same group of people authors like T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis have identified over the years.
Eliot described the cohort as those who ‘are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.’ Lewis characterized them as ‘omnipotent moral busybodies’.
The point, however, that continues to be overlooked is that, in a free society, these people have every right to think and act as they see fit – as long as they don’t harm or restrict the rights of others to follow a road less travelled.
When it comes to education then, and the current understanding that funding the education of our children is a collective responsibility, there are only two options that will satisfy everyone.
The first option is to remove the ‘collective responsibility’ from our centralized government. Simply eliminate the public school system.
The second option is to follow the tenants determined by the U. S. Supreme Court in its 2001 Zelman v Simmons-Harris, Cleveland School Choice case. Specifically, that in an educational free market, the benefit of a publicly funded education voucher, used in a parent’s voluntary exchange for educational goods and services – whatever it is: “…is reasonably attributable to the individual recipient, not the government, whose role ends with the disbursement of benefits”.
Otherwise, the exercise of collectively educating our children is doomed to avarice, corruption, and failure. And after decades of this exemplary dysfunction, anyone who argues that it doesn’t exist is experiencing the same pathological denial of reality described by Dr. Hughes.
The question then remains, what should an individual do when the existence of one group of people, regardless of their philosophical bent, requires the subjugation of those with whom they disagree?
Aside from the two options listed above, I have yet to see anyone make a reasonable suggestion in that regard.
As you recommended, I’ve submitted this missive in an email to the speakVT.org folks and look forward to hearing from you.
Mr. Eshelman,
Ms. Stone has asked me to convey to you that her website is transparencymatters.info
She has done a presentation for SpeakVt.org but is not otherwise affiliated with them.
She can also be reached at transparencymatters.info@gmail.com.
We both look forward to hearing from you.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Will do.
BTW: The observation by Dr. Peter Hughes posted on the speakVT page is still worth the read.
Was it not the “D” party and others who could not define what a “woman” is? The comment purslane made is spot on: their criteria is exaclty what they do to humanity on a daily basis. Lawfare warefare utilizing gaslighting, projection, and the highest level of hypocrisy = witchcraft spellbinding ritualistic mind control with soft language and the illusion of protection.
coercive controlling behavior? Have you spoken with mother in laws before passing the bill? Women in general might not fare so well with this bill…….Karen’s of the world unite!